Restaurant review: Chicha showcases modern Peruvian cuisine

From left: Chefs Allison Flook and Shelome Bouvette and manager Kumiko Umeno. The trio owns Chicha, a restaurant that puts a modern spin on Peruvian classics.

Photographed by:Les Bazso, Vancouver Sun

It’s long been hailed as the next big thing. But where is all this great Peruvian food?

In Vancouver, we’ve had some forays. Mochikas does a good job in a mom and pop kind of way. Silvestre Deli and Bistro in Gastown tries.

In the U.S., it’s a heat-seeking trend. Andina in Portland and La Mar in New York and San Francisco showcase Peruvian food at its best and have created electricity. The chef behind the La Mar restaurants, Peruvian superstar chef, Gaston Acurio, has been called the most famous chef we’ve never heard of; he runs several restaurants in Lima and other Latin American countries and is a genuine culinary rock star. But more to the point, he wants Peruvian food to rock the world.

In a minor way, Shelome Bouvette is doing that in Vancouver — rockin’ it on East Broadway at Chicha, a restaurant that showcases a modern Peruvian cuisine. “In New York, Peruvian food on fire. It’s become very big,” she says.

At Chicha, she gives the food a lot of love, starting with the cocktails. She begs, borrows, steals (kidding) the hard-to-get pisco, a big-time Peruvian liqueur. Peruvian food, Bouvette says, hasn’t gone viral because it’s so hard to get ingredients. “There are about 3,000 kinds of potatoes in Peru,” she says.

Until recently, she was the chef at Lolita’s South of the Border Cantina in the West End and the food has retained a similar personality – generous and bold, yet feminine with freshness and colour. She has partnered with Kumiko Umeno front of house) and Allison Flook (works the line and worked with Bouvette at Lolita’s).

Excuse me. I’m passing Go and skipping right to the dessert because they were standouts. When I looked at the dessert menu on the chalkboard, I figured yeah, yeah, let’s see what she can do with gluten-free quinoa chocolate cake and with sweet potato pumpkin doughnuts (with spiced honey). Well, she hit it out of the park. It was the best gluten-free cake I’ve had, ethereally light and moist. (How did she do that?) What I expected would be lumpy, deep-fried doughnuts were also light and delicious. “I kind of mastered it,” Bouvette says of the doughnuts. She observed the process in Peru, how the dough was really sticky and liquid. “You get in with your fingers and go right to the fryer.” (They’re called picarones.)

The savories are divided into salads, ceviche, whipped potato dishes (Causa), Peruvian classics (Platos de Fondo), grilled skewers (Anticuchos) and Little Cravings (Antojitos). Dishes are best shared and they range anywhere from $4 to $17 (the latter for the Yarrow Meadows duck confit with dark beer rice).

A puck-shaped quinoa salad (quinoa is a Peruvian staple) comes in colours – red onion, red peppers, cilantro, avocado, mango jazzed up with a green and an orange sauce.

Congrejo, one of the causas is presented as a cylinder of softly whipped potatoes with lime, oil, basil and topped with crab salad, avocado and mango. Causa is a common restaurant dish, served in a number of forms. Nothing wrong with the dish but for me, there’s just too much softness going on.

Duck confit with dark beer and coriander rice is a hefty, earthy dish; the duck is tender and tasty.

A mixed seafood ceviche (white fish, scallops, mussels, octopus with corn on the cob and sweet potato) is not as citric as you might have had at Lolita’s. It’s tossed in the seafood broth for a couple of minutes, she says.

A grilled octopus and chorizo with Peruvian black olive aioli and a basil and aji pepper mash wasn’t as spicy as I’d expected. Empanadas with kale, corn, roasted butternut squash, fresh cheese was pale in colour, large on flavour.

Chichas is small and fills up quickly. A group of nine came in and there was no way. It’s open to 1 a.m. during the week and to 2 a.m. on Fridays and Saturdays.

Service varies. One server looked tired, was forgetful (delivered a wrong dish) and pronounced confit with the final ‘t’. Another was cordial and peppy. When Umeno is on the floor, she adds an easygoing personality. (When Bouvette referred to Umeno as her girlfriend, I mistook them for a couple. Umeno roared with laughter. “Wouldn’t my parents be surprised!” she laughed. And when I asked if she was the somewhat short person, she responded: “I AM short!”